Archive: Influential Fashion Educators: Linda Loppa
Originally published April 2015.
By Jorinde Croese
In one of the previous interviews in this series, 1 Granary spoke with Westminster’s fashion course director, Andrew Groves, about the fact that the late Louise Wilson’s influence seems to have been far greater on those who have become tutors, as opposed to her reputed influence on fashion designers. When we ran into Linda Loppa at the LVMH Prize cocktail reception in March, it was an opportune moment to investigate her impact on those whom she’s taught.
She was the head of the Royal Academy of Art’s fashion department in Antwerp for 25 years before being appointed as dean of the Polimoda International Institute of Fashion Design & Marketing in Florence in 2008. She gave the reigns to Walter van Beirendonck, whom many believe has been taught by Loppa (as he was part of the Antwerp Six), but less is true.
“History can be deceiving,” Loppa reflects. “What is correct,” she continues, “is that in many fashion schools all over the world — from Chicago, to Vienna or Tokyo — graduates of the Fashion Department of Antwerp are now leaders in education. My 45 years experience in different fashion fields, not only education, taught me that if education reaches its goal, it could change a person.”
In 45 years, she has undoubtedly taken more different routes through the fashion industry than most of her contemporaries. She graduated from the Royal Academy in 1971; worked as a designer for a Belgian outerwear company where she specialized in producing raincoats; launched a high-end boutique in 1978 that sold fashion from designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier, Helmut Lang, Comme des Garçons; was the head of the fashion department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts for twenty-five years. These jobs were often overlapping. During the years as head of fashion at the Academy, she founded the Flanders Fashion Institute and the ModeNatie forum in Belgium. It is fair to say that Loppa has been extremely instrumental in the development of Belgian fashion and its global recognition.